


hard feelings / loveless

by ivermectin



Category: Gossip Girl (TV 2007)
Genre: Dan Humphrey is Not Gossip Girl, Multi, Not Actually Unrequited Love (in other cases), Pining, Unrequited Love (in some cases), dear gossip girl tag wrangler: i am sorry for the nonsense that is these tags, endgame: dair, endgame: serenessa (what's their shipname), i took tweezers to canon and pulled out bits and pieces of it, it's seen as a bad thing though, lowercase (it's stylistic), mentions canon typical slut shaming, mentions of shitty parents, nate & jenny kiss once and date never, not much Chuck Bass (he's mentioned just twice.), standard gossip girl content warnings, very small mentions tho
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-16
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:21:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27591974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivermectin/pseuds/ivermectin
Summary: a conglomerate of relationships, heartbreak, pining, and general messiness. dan, serena, blair, nate, vanessa and mentions of others, all set to the tone and genre of the lorde song in the title. everyone hurts everyone else. everyone loves everyone very much. thematically, it's all very gossip girl, except with happier endings for everyone.
Relationships: Blair/Serena, Dan/Blair, Dan/Serena, Everyone/Everyone else, Nate/Blair, Nate/Dan, Others (Spoilers!), Serena/Vanessa
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21





	hard feelings / loveless

**Author's Note:**

> oh, this fic is my baby. i was going to just write dan & serena breaking up AGAIN but instead, all of this spilled out.  
> it's in lowercase because i wrote it all out in lowercase & was gonna capitalise it but realised that i actually like the aesthetics of this a lot better? 
> 
> i don't really know how to tag or warn for this. anyway. onwards!!

1

dan’s great love story begins like this. golden flash, bright girlish laughter, like the first breath of summer freedom, a recklessness that glows like a sunrise, the way serena meets his eyes and smiles at him like they’re friends even though she doesn’t know his name. he’s stuck there, her at the top of the stairs, and they’re talking about hello kitty and she’s laughing at him but it’s fine, because she’s laughing, and oh god, _he_ did that, and she’s so beautiful. he made her laugh. she glows with it. she’s _so_ beautiful.

here is the thing about serena; she is so out of his league that he can daydream about her like she’s a celebrity. she might as well be one with the way gossip girl goes on and on about her; the way she never flinches under it. her smiles are easy, and if the boys in the locker room are to be believed, so is she – but conversation like that makes dan want to snap something. he is not chuck bass, not one of those boys.

he loves serena because he can’t have her.

it will take him years to understand this. dan’s a writer, but even he can’t imagine a universe in which they’re dan-and-serena. and then, serena’s gone for a whole year, and then serena’s back, and in some weird twist of fate, there _is_ a dan-and-serena. it’s better than anything he could’ve dreamed of. but maybe that’s the problem – it’s not a dream anymore. it’s real, flesh and blood, and the thing about reality is that it has the capacity to hurt.

2

imagine breaking up with the love of your life – no, they were just high school sweethearts – imagine doing that at a _wedding_ of all places. dan’s not sure what it is; the knowledge that he can never be the person serena needs, the way it’d stung, her need to lie to him and to get help from her upper east side darlings instead, or the awareness that both of them had seen the best parts of each other and never really looked at each other’s flaws the way they should have.

 _rome was glorious_ , he’ll write. _rome still fell_.

3

serena longs for dan after. it’s an ironic twist of fate; she’s never wanted anything she couldn’t have. both blair and dan have accused her of it before, of having things easy, getting things without working for them, everything falling into her lap. it hurt more from dan than it did from blair. he should’ve known better.

then again, aren’t you supposed to resent your ex? your first love, when it dies out, isn’t it supposed to smoulder?

serena wants dan because she can’t have him, and that’s new and exciting. serena wants dan and it hurts because blair’s holding him in her arms, and dan is curling against her grip in a way he never did with her; her small hands pressed to his lower back, her eyes closed with focus, and serena recognises that look of devotion in dan’s expression, notices the way he’s melting into blair, because _she had that first._ and it hurts, because blair hated dan from the beginning, and dan hated blair too, but now they’re wrapped up in each other with the sort of love that people make movies about, and it makes her want to stab something, because blair isn’t meant to smile at dan like that.

serena isn’t used to this; to people moving on from her. maybe that makes her a bad person, but she doesn’t know what to do with it. she doesn’t want to be lily. but as she watches dan kissing a woman who isn’t her, a woman who is her best friend, something dies inside her, and she thinks she gets it, now. why blair used to destroy people. why blair craved control.

serena has always been better than blair at poker. maybe she can be better than her in this, too. she knows dan, right? she knew dan first, right?

4

blair thinks serena’s pain is useless and redundant. blair thinks of serena and nate, of the affair and the bitterness that came with knowing that your boyfriend cheated on you with your best friend, lost his virginity to her, even. blair’s never thought of serena as a seductor or slut or whatever else it is that the other girls call her, but this is unforgiveable.

she’d sown a heart on nate’s sleeve. she’d dreamt of their life together with so much certainty. and nate had let her down, because he’d never love her, damn him. and serena had let her down, because she’d taken. and taken. and taken.

sometimes, blair hates serena.

other times, blair wants to _be_ serena. effortless, warm, kind, sweet as honey compared to vinegar blair waldorf. fucking sunshine barbie, she thinks bitterly. if only blair could be her. if only blair could be _hers_ ; but no, that’s dangerous territory, and they’re not going there. they can’t afford to go there.

5

“if you kiss now, i won’t count it as cheating,” chuck tells her over the elevator intercom. and blair thinks, everything be fucked. she leans forward, kisses serena quickly, not giving her time to think, even.

“you and i will always be connected, s,” she says, softly. _fuck your dad,_ she does not say. but she wishes she could. she wishes she could do something about the hollow chasm in serena, the emptiness that’s shaped around the memory of a father who refused to look back, to come back for her.

oh yeah, because that’s the fine print. serena doesn’t have _everything_ she wants _._ nobody does, not even serena van der wooodsen.

serena gives her a crooked smile, the sort of smile that only blair gets to see.

blair waldorf doesn’t get everything she wants, either. but she remembers eight grade, matching friendship necklaces, her and serena wearing each other’s blazers. and she thinks, _close enough. close enough._

blair’s life is a tessellation of almosts, anyway. happy ending with nate? almost. serena loving you the way you want? no, but almost. chuck bass making her feel safe? no, but almost. being a powerful woman? almost. but she’s damn good at pretending and playing dirty, so it’s okay.

6

when _dan_ judges him for sleeping with someone for money, nate wants to cry or scream. this is dan, he thinks. he expected better from him – out of everyone who he’d expected to call him a slut, dan humphrey wasn’t even on that list. he wonders, idly, how serena can handle this all the time; people making shitty comments about her sex life, that too people she used to be friends with (he’d heard about blair’s comment about brown not offering degrees in slut. who hadn’t. thank you for broadcasting that, gossip girl.)

dan’s face does something complicated, like he wants to take the words back. but that’s the thing about words, even if you’re a writer. you can’t take them back.

“i know jenny’s a few years younger than us,” nate says, “but i see her as my equal. she’s advancing her career, she’s going to get where she wants. you on the other hand?” nate shrugs. “the only part of the writer stereotype that you’ve got going is the asshole bit, so good luck with that.” he gives dan a smile he doesn’t feel. walks away from him.

and in the loft, packing his stuff, he thinks about how he’d been impressed by jenny, sure. and when she’d kissed him, he’d kissed back, which was a mistake, because he’d really just been looking out for jenny.

it’s not jenny he’s been going crazy over. it’s not jenny who he’d tried to rescue from pre-collegiate hazing, not jenny whose almost naked body he’d seen tied up and been unable to forget.

 _fuck_ , he thinks, getting out of brooklyn for good. he really needs some weed. and possibly a woman who's twice his age and can help him fuck the pining out of his system.

pining over jenny humphrey would be sad. pining over dan humphrey is worse. pathetic, even.

7

vanessa kisses serena because she recognises the look on her face. it’s one of utter devastation, one that dan is responsible for.

serena lets her do it, kisses back even. in a startling turn of events, it’s serena who undoes the buttons on vanessa’s shirt, who puts her hands up her skirt and presses gentle kisses on the soft skin under her collarbone. it’s serena who puts her hands up vanessa’s panties, who puts her hands up vanessa. she’s really good at this, vanessa thinks, muffling her moan into serena’s neck.

after, vanessa says, quietly, “do you think dan and blair will ever be happy together?”

serena is staring at the ceiling, and she doesn’t look at vanessa. “i want to say no,” she says. “but i’m scared the answer is yes.”

“me too,” vanessa admits.

“let’s not think about them,” serena says. “fuck our best friends.”

“i’d much rather fuck _you_ ,” vanessa says, and serena _finally_ looks at her, and she smiles. it reaches her eyes, and vanessa thinks, she finally gets it; why everyone’s in love with serena, even if they won’t admit it.

how could anyone know serena van der woodsen and not love her?

8

“i can’t believe this,” blair says, from her position hovering over dan’s shoulder while he checks gossip girl. the satin of her lingerie is pressing against his shoulder, and he smiles, because the moment is oddly domestic and adult while simultaneously being extremely high school. “our best friends did _what?”_

the picture involves serena and vanessa in a compromising position, thankfully not graphic, but all too clear. they’re both smiling at each other.

“uh, vanessa’s sister ruby has this joke about lesbians and guitar hero,” dan offers awkwardly. “i guess it’s prophetic, in these two’s case. so basically, a lesbian walks into a bar –”

“well, _don’t_ tell me what it is!” blair says, giving him a pissy look. “you’re a cis man, lesbian jokes are off limits for you.”

dan rolls his eyes. “for what it’s worth,” he says after a moment, “i think they’d be great together. both of them have that weird hipster roam-around-the-world spiritually never settle nonsense going on. and they’re both great at running away – ”

“and leaving us behind,” blair says. they’re both thinking of similar things; vanessa in vermont, serena in boarding school.

blair kisses dan’s cheek. “i know. well, we’re here, right?”

9

nate hates the way he feels about this; all his friends paired up and him alone. even _chuck_ is with georgina, which is an oddly nice thing to see. they’re both more balanced than blair and chuck were. dan and blair, again, he couldn’t ever have seen coming, but they’re similar enough that it works. he feels oddly wrongfooted by dan and blair all the same; he should’ve been in love with blair, and he’d fucked that up, he shouldn’t have been in love with dan, and he’d fucked that up, too. he also feels woefully inadequate about serena and vanessa’s epic new romance, especially since they’re going backpacking and playing sports together and doing all the things that he’d promised vanessa he’d do with her and secretly dreamed of doing with serena.

it’s like everyone’s gotten their happy ending, and he doesn’t fit in anywhere.

dan and blair try and tell him otherwise, invite him for movie nights, tell him that when they have a kid ( _when_ , nate observes, _not if_ ) he will be the godfather. it’s still odd, being the third wheel, and he still feels guilty around them, for the feelings he wasn’t supposed to have but did, the feelings he was supposed to have but didn’t.

which is why, when carter baizen hits on him in a bar, buys him a drink, and calls him gorgeous, nate says, “let’s travel the world together.”

carter looks at him like he’s mentally undressing him, which is fine. nate can do no strings, and if he needs to ditch carter and complete the trip on his own, he can do that, too.

“for you?” carter smiles. “anything.”

“shut up, fuckface,” nate says. he swallows his drink at one shot. “show me that you’re worth my time.”

“okay,” carter says agreeably, hand reaching for nate’s belt buckle easily, in one practiced movement. “i can do that.”

and he does.

**Author's Note:**

> blah blah blah hit me up @ dancommablair on tumblr!  
> i actually have a vague idea for a nate sequel to this....


End file.
